POLICE are cracking down on social media posts branding officers ‘assassins’ after a man was tasered to death on the Costa del Sol.
The Policia Nacional’s Cybercrime Group has launched an investigation into several social media accounts and forums, authorities have said, following reports from officers that their personal information and photos were being leaked online – something police warn could constitute a hate crime.
The probe comes as police on the Costa del Sol face mounting backlash over the death of 35-year-old Moroccan national Haitam Mejri, who died during an arrest at a phone shop in Torremolinos in December last year.
Shocking footage circulated online showed an agitated Mejri being restrained by two officers while a third fired a taser at his back and neck multiple times.
Police said Mejri died of heart failure triggered by drug use and ‘agitated delirium.’
But critics argued that officers used excessive force during the arrest, with widespread outrage expressed on social media.
As police push back against the criticism, independent journalist Fonsi Laiza claimed TikTok removed one of his posts in which he described Mejri’s death as an instance of ‘police brutality.’
“Policia Nacional are Spain’s ICE,” Laiza said in a follow-up post.
The controversy, now at a boiling point as tensions continue to escalate, began shortly after Mejri’s arrest and death on December 7.
CCTV footage shows him entering a phone shop on Calle Hoyo in a distressed state, apparently searching for a phone charger.
After a brief struggle with the shopkeeper, Mejri pushes him aside, places two phones on the counter, and plugs one in to charge.
Several officers are then seen entering the shop minutes later.
At this point, according to statements from six officers involved, Mejri refused repeated orders to drop a pair of scissors he was holding.
He was eventually disarmed, after which two officers attempted to restrain him.
When they were unable to do so, another officer deployed a taser at close range. Two additional taser discharges followed before four officers managed to handcuff him.
Police said Mejri was in a state of ‘extreme agitation’ before collapsing, and have requested that the shop’s security footage be included in the official report.
Officers and paramedics performed CPR, but he could not be revived.
An autopsy conducted by Malaga’s Institute of Legal Medicine, supported by toxicology tests in Seville, concluded that Mejri died from a drug reaction associated with agitated delirium, exacerbated by an underlying heart condition.
However, an independent report by forensic expert Aitor Curiel, commissioned by the family, disputes this conclusion.
Curiel stated that Mejri’s body showed 86 injuries and argued that he would not have died had he not sustained multiple injuries during the arrest.
To compound Mejri’s family’s outrage, ElDiario.es later reported that a judge shelved the case without interviewing the officers involved.
The controversy has also drawn political criticism, with Ione Belarra, secretary-general of the far-left Podemos party, writing in a post on X (formerly Twitter):
“Saying that you ‘die’ of a heart attack while police restrain you is like saying that women ‘die’ at the hands of their partner while they are being beaten.
“They are not deaths, they are murders – and this racist police violence must be stopped now.”
The SUP police union has since filed a criminal complaint against Belarra, accusing her of defamation, serious insults, and hate crimes against police officers.
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